Web 2.0 creates opportunities for new sorts of Web services that take advantage of the user’s
will to participate and contribute. Crowdsourcing allows users all over the world to be a part of
creating value. It might involve creating a logo for a new business, raise funds for a project or
categorize data.
In this empirical study, we examine the content, instructions and functions of four
crowdsourcing services, to determine how the services are creating motivation and participation.
In 2011 Kaufmann et al. published a motivation model for crowdsourcing participation that
aims to explain motivation behind the participation. The model contains thirteen motivational
factors that we in this study developed into thirteen questions. We use these questions to
examine the content of the crowdsourcing services. Primarily we search for differences and
similarities between services that offer possible monetary compensation and those who don’t
offer any possible monetary compensation. We also want to test the relevance of Kaufmann’s et
al. motivation model.
Differences and similarities is shown to be insufficient to describe the findings made in this
study. Instead we identified three patterns. The first one has similarities within and between the
two categories, where the motivational factors, human capital advancement and action
significance by external values, showed to have the strongest connection to this pattern. The
second pattern we found similarities within but differences between the categories, showed that
the motivational factor, pastime, differs the most between categories. The third pattern,
differences within and between categories, is the unexpected finding in this study. Among other
motivational factors, signaling is used differently by all the four services. We also found support
for Kaufmann’s et al. motivation model, and finally confirmed findings from previous studies.